


The Betrayal

by S_L_Blake



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: AU, Gen, Good Draco, Oneshot, Protective Narcissa, nasty Lucius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_L_Blake/pseuds/S_L_Blake
Summary: *ONE-SHOT* "Fine, if you must know - the main topic over Christmas was my father wanting me to take the Dark Mark this summer," Draco said, feeling his stomach roll just saying it. Draco must make a choice - will he follow in his father's footsteps or will he follow his heart and join the Order?
Kudos: 9





	The Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, this was originally a submission for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition which I posted on an old account over on FFnet. Thank you to Cupcakeyy for betaing this. I do not own any rights to Harry Potter; they belong to J.K. Rowling.

The rain hit the window panes while the wind battered against them, like an invisible enemy trying to get into the castle. The library was quiet for a Friday morning, quiet whispers and pages being turned the only noises coming from within. Draco and Theo sat together in the quiet study section of the library, working on their assignments for the following week, when Theo broke the silence.

“Are you going to tell me what is going on?”

Draco placed his quill neatly into the ink pot on his desk, before turning to meet his best friend’s concerned gaze.

“Nothing is going on, Theo, now if you don’t mind, I want to get this essay finished,” Draco replied, turning back to his assignment.

“Oh, cut the crap, Draco. You haven’t been yourself since you returned from Christmas break. Blaise and Pansy have noticed too, you know, so, why don’t you just tell me? Or don’t you trust us anymore?”

Draco sighed, running a hand through his blond hair nervously. He’d been trying to distract himself since he’d returned to school, not wanting to think about what his father had said, but now he knew he couldn’t run any longer, he had to face it and in doing so he’d have to tell Theo. “Fine, if you must know - the main topic over Christmas was my father wanting me to take the Dark Mark this summer,” Draco said, feeling his stomach roll just saying it.

“Shit, Draco, that’s…” Theo trailed off, not knowing what to say to his best friend about this. While his own father was a Death Eater, he wasn’t in the inner circle and so Theo didn’t have to worry about this subject ever being raised with him, but Draco was and he felt sorry for his friend, knowing how much pressure he must be under right now. So, that was why he’d been acting subdued and he didn’t blame him. He would have been the same, it was a big thing to think about. “Are you going to go through with it?” he asked.

“Honestly, Theo? I don’t want to. I always thought making my father proud by following in his footsteps was the right thing to do, but now… I know the man has never been proud of anything I’ve done, so what’s the point? He’s groomed me for this moment but I will not do it, I will not become like him, a fucking puppet on a string, part of a cult,” Draco said, disdain dripping from his tongue.

“What are you going to do? Talk to Snape?”

“It’s all I can do, Theo,” Draco said, his grey eyes mixed with certainty and dread at how his godfather might react given he too was a Death Eater, yet almost seemed to be on the fringes of the group.

“Look, I won’t say anything to the others, you have my word,” Theo said.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He knew Pansy would have a go at him and that’s one thing he didn’t need right now, but Blaise was the wild card and for now it was better that only Theo knew, he could trust him.

The boys made idle conversation as they finished their assignments, Draco taking it as a welcome distraction from his murky thoughts on the matter ahead.

Once they had finished, they packed their things away and walked back to the dungeons. As their footsteps reverberated off the stone walls in the silent corridor, Draco’s mind wandered to a memory that he’d had locked away but which had now sprung free.

_“Father, look at me,” six-year-old Draco shouted from his position on his broom in mid-air, grinning proudly as he hovered above the ground._

_“That’s excellent, my boy, now come down and get your hands washed before dinner,” Lucius replied, a faint smile on his face as he stood up from his chair on the patio._

_Draco had his mind set on how he wanted to dismount from the broom, he dived down about to do a roll for the first time when his fingers slipped and he fell off and onto the ground._

_Even though the height of the fall wasn’t much, it still hurt as he landed on the patio on his knees with a scream, tears falling down his cheeks from the shock and the stinging sensation radiating from his hands and knees. His mother came running out, but his father was by his side before she could be and Draco desperately needed the comfort he knew his mother could give him. Pulling him up to his feet, Lucius knelt on his haunches before him, his grey eyes stern as he put a hand on his son’s chin so that he’d look at him._

_“Stop that right now, Draco, you’re fine. Malfoys do not cry, do you hear me? To cry is to show weakness,” Lucius said._

_“But it hurts, Father,” Draco sobbed, wincing from the pain._

_“Talking back to me now, boy?” Lucius asked, his grey eyes narrowing._

_Draco flinched and wiped his eyes quickly, shaking his head. “No, Sir.”_

_“Lucius that’s enough, he’s just a boy, can’t you see he’s hurt?” Narcissa snapped angrily at her husband for being so callous to their son. Opening her arms, Draco ran to her and she wrapped her arms around him, stroking his back soothingly. “Come inside love and I’ll get those cuts healed, alright?”_

_Draco nodded, taking his mother’s hand and going inside with her._

_“You coddle him too much, Narcissa!” Lucius shouted after them but Narcissa ignored her husband, her sole focus being her little boy, who needed her. She knew they’d be having words tonight once Draco was asleep and she would be telling Lucius what she thought of him. He may be her husband but he was hurting their boy mentally with his vicious words and it had to stop._

_“Dobby, could you bring a glass of milk and some cookies up to Draco’s room, please?” Narcissa asked the house elf as they entered the kitchen._

_Dobby’s green eyes shifted to the sad looking little boy and then back to his mistress. “Yes, Miss.”_

_“Thank you,” she said and led Draco through the room and up the stairs._

_By the time they reached the bedroom, the plate of cookies and the glass of milk were there, waiting on his desk._

_He sat on the chair while his mother gently rolled up his trousers to his knees. There were red grazes from where he’d fallen. Taking her wand, she cast Episkey, healing the wounds and meeting his gaze. “Does it hurt anywhere else, love?” she asked._

_Draco nodded and showed her the palms of his hands, which were cut and still bleeding slightly. She healed them and put his trousers back to normal before motioning for him to get a drink and a cookie. “That better?”_

_“Yes, Mum. Why does he hate me?” Draco asked, swallowing a bite of the biscuit with the milk._

_“Oh, sweetheart,” Narcissa said, stroking his face softly, before pulling him into her embrace when he began to cry. “He doesn’t hate you, Draco, he loves you.”_

_“No, he doesn’t, Mum, he never reads to me the way you and Uncle Severus do, he never hugs me or kisses my forehead at night either,” Draco said, through his sobs, not understanding why his father was the way he was with him. What had he done wrong? What could he do to make his father like him?_

_Narcissa’s heart broke for her little boy, she could try to explain why Lucius was the way he was, but she knew deep down that it wouldn’t help, that Draco wouldn’t understand. Instead, she pulled back and stroked his hair gently. “Listen to me, Draco, your father was wrong, it’s ok to cry. It does not make you weak; it shows you feel, the same way it does when you laugh. Never be afraid to show how you feel.”_

_“Alright, Mum, I love you.”_

_“I love you too, my sweet boy,” she said, kissing his forehead softly. She led him downstairs to dinner when he’d finished his cookie, leaving the rest for him for later, it wouldn’t do him any harm._

Draco came out of the memory to find that they were mere steps away from their Head of House’s office.

“Good luck,” Theo said, patting Draco on the shoulder before continuing on his way to the Slytherin Common Room.

Taking a deep breath, Draco went to knock on the door, but stopped when it opened, his godfather standing in the doorway, dressed in his black robes.

“Ah, Draco, that was good timing, I was about to come and find you. I’d like to speak to you, come in,” Snape said, moving aside to let the boy into his office.

Putting his bag down by the chair, Draco took a seat and waited for Severus. “What is this about, Uncle?” he asked. While he’d never call him such outside of the office, Draco knew Severus wouldn’t mind here and now.

Severus sat down facing him and steepled his fingers together on the desk. “Your mother is worried about you. She hasn’t heard a word from you since Christmas and I’m sure you realise it’s now almost March. Is everything alright?”

Draco knew he could trust the man before him, knowing that he’d always done the best he could by him. Taking a shaky breath, he shook his head. “No, it’s not. I need your help, Uncle; my father wants me to take that… mark in summer.”

“I take it that is something you don’t want to do?” Severus asked.

“At first I did but now I don’t, I don’t want to become like him.”

“How do you think I could help?”

“Could you speak to the Headmaster? I can’t go back there.”

Severus had hoped that this day would come and he was relieved that it had, the boy before him was not his father, and he could see that now. There was good in his heart, it wasn’t ravaged by hatred and the lust for power the way Lucius’ was. “I promised your mother that I’d take care of you however I could while at school. There is one thing I could offer, a way out, though if you say yes, you must know that your father will see it as a betrayal to the family and the Malfoy legacy as a whole,” he said, studying the boy’s face for any sign that he might be wanting to back out.

Draco sat forward; his grey eyes alight with the possibility of this escape plan. “I don’t care what he thinks, trying to make him proud is all I’ve ever done and it’s been for nothing. He’s never been proud or cared, he’s never shown any affection towards me; do you know how that’s made me feel? Worthless, like I don’t belong, so, go on, Uncle, tell me.”

“You could join the Order as my ward.”

Draco’s eyes widened. “But… you took the mark…”

“I did, however, it’s not where my true loyalties lie, Draco.”

Draco wanted to ask why and how, but it would have to wait for another time. He nodded. “Yes, I’ll do it. I just hope my mother will understand,” he said, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to the manor; not that it had felt like home lately, but it would hurt not seeing his mother for a while.

“Draco, she will, she never wanted you to follow in your father’s footsteps.”

“Which father, Severus? He never truly behaved like my father. You were more of a father to me than he ever was.”

Severus was taken aback by his words, his heart warming for once at the affection that Draco held for him. “Still.”

Draco released a sigh of relief and smiled finally, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his burdened shoulders. “Where will I stay?”

“I’ll speak to Dumbledore about that and let you know, but regardless of whether it’s here or somewhere else, you’ll be safe, I promise.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” Draco said, standing and putting his satchel over his shoulder.

Before he left the office, Severus stood and walked around the desk putting a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

Draco smiled and without thinking a second about it, hugged Severus who embraced him, knowing this was what the boy had needed from Lucius but had never gotten. By doing so, Severus knew Lucius had lost his son long before this moment.

Draco left the office, and that evening he wrote two letters, one to his mother and the other would be addressed to both his parents. He wouldn’t send the latter for a while yet.

* * *

Narcissa was in the garden, enjoying the sunshine of an early spring day when the mail arrived, the owl dropping it neatly onto the table.

Noticing Draco’s handwriting, relief flooded her body as she opened it and read the letter.

_Dear Mum,_

_I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch sooner, I’ve had to think about my choice with the mark and I’m alright with the decision I’ve made. I won’t be taking it, Mum, it isn’t who I am, nor is it the son you raised. I know it means I can’t return to the manor but I have hope I’ll see you again,_

_Love_

_Draco_

Tears fell down her cheeks as she reread the letter; the tears were of happiness that her son had made the right decision and of sadness for being apart from him for a while. Placing the letter back into the envelope, she took it inside and placed it into a box at the back of the wardrobe where she knew Lucius would never look.

She wrote a short reply and sent it, knowing that letters may be their only form of communication for now.

Draco read the letter the next day at breakfast in the Great Hall.

_Dear Son,_

_I’m so proud of you, I never wanted that life for you and knowing that you will be safe is enough for me until we see each other again, sweetheart._

_Love,_

_Mum_

* * *

**One month later**

The sound of glass smashing in the lounge had Narcissa move quickly downstairs, wanting to know what had happened.

She found Lucius standing in the middle of the room, his body shaking with rage, his eyes full of a red hot fury as he looked at the letter that was in his vice like grip.

Hearing her step into the room, he looked up at her. “That ungrateful little bastard has betrayed us, Narcissa. Betrayed his own flesh and blood, to join the Order, the _fucking_ Order.”

“Lucius, whatever are you on about?” she asked, her face a clever mask of ignorance, even though she knew what that letter was about. She’d learned over the years how to mask her feelings from him and had become an artist at her work.

Lucius thrust the letter at her as if he was being burned. Taking it, she skimmed over the letter, knowing full well that while it had been addressed to them both, it was in fact solely for Lucius.

_Dear Mother & Father, _

_I will not be returning for the summer holidays to take the mark. I will not become a puppet for things I no longer believe in. I would say I’m sorry, but the fact is I’m not._

_Your son,_

_Draco_

Looking up from the letter, she glanced at her husband. Beneath the rage she knew he was hurting and yet she didn’t care. He’d driven their boy away. If things had been different, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Draco may have betrayed his father and the family in name, but he hadn’t betrayed her.

“He’s no son of mine, he’s a blood traitor, all the things we did for him and this is how he repays us,” Lucius fumed, continuing to rant while Narcissa pretended to listen and empathise, but deep down she was happy. She hadn’t lost her boy, not really. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, let me know what you thought by leaving a review.  
> I’ll see you all soon,  
> S L Blake x


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